


you don't have to be lonely

by writelikeitsgoingoutofstyle (twoandahalfslytherins)



Series: December Challenge [20]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: M/M, Modern AU, cat fishing, farmersonlydotcom, from enemies to ???
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-05
Updated: 2016-12-05
Packaged: 2018-09-06 15:30:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8758537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twoandahalfslytherins/pseuds/writelikeitsgoingoutofstyle
Summary: “Such a pity.” Alex stared at the latest email from Washington, trying to decipher whether or not it was a ‘drop everything you’re doing’ assignment or just another thing to be added to the pile. “Who knows, maybe you’ll find someone else to be your sweetest belle, your goddess in red satin.”
   It should have been an innocent statement, but when Jefferson’s brow furrowed Alex caught his mistake. Blanched before shoving back from his desk. “Well, duty calls. Wash needs me to-”   Go collaborate with Lafayette. Jefferson cut him off before he could say that, though. “You.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheInevitableSense](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheInevitableSense/gifts).



Maybe it was wrong to goad his coworkers, but Alex couldn’t help himself. “You seem awfully happy lately, Thomas. Did you finish mounting that giant sculpture of yourself in the bedroom?”

From his desk, Jefferson rubbed the side of his nose with his middle finger, discretely flipping Alex off. “Considering your recent failures, a kinder man would spare you the details. But since you insist on pushing me, I’ll have you know that I have met my match in the fairer sex.”

The dig about his broken engagement to Eliza would have stung more if Alex didn’t know exactly who Jefferson’s match was. “A kinder man you are not, obviously. So spill the beans. Is she hot?”

“I am not a man to be swayed by mere looks.” The way Jefferson looked down his nose at Alex let him know Jefferson wouldn’t say the same of him. “However, her wit is well matched with her beauty. A beautiful rose among a sea of dandelions.”

Somehow, Alex had expected Jefferson to be a little more well spoken. After all, online he’d referred to her as Lady Truth returning from her well to remind him what a folly it was to give up on love so soon. Called her Athena. Even said that she was the reason why poetry had been invented.

“Maybe now that you’re getting laid, you’ll be less of an ass,” Alex teased. Forced a look of incredulousness when Jefferson faltered just a touch. “You are getting it, right? Or is your head too far up your ass to give in to physical pleasures like us common folk.”

Jefferson made a show of examining his well-manicured nails. “We have not yet indulged. But she is made all the sweeter for it. I consider it a matter of character that we didn’t fall into bed.”

It only proved that their relationship could last without physical attraction. Or at least, that’s what Jefferson had said last night. ‘Maria’ had blown off their date last week, claimed she’d changed her mind. Wasn’t ready for a physical relationship. Alex had thought that would be the last of it until Jefferson assured her that it was alright. He completely understood what it meant to be tentative, was willing to wait a while longer to meet his muse.

Truth be told, Alex hadn’t meant for the prank to go on this long. But really, Jefferson only had himself to blame for being so obnoxious. If he hadn’t of tried to make Alex’s first few months at the company hell, Alex wouldn’t have been so amused to see the man on the dating website John used to pick up beards.

Personally, Alex thought the website was a bit misnamed. Farmersonly claimed to cater to ‘country folk’ looking for other ‘country folk’, which had made it an easy choice when John needed girls to take to his dad’s events. 

But Jefferson was no farmer. Alex wouldn’t even consider him a country boy, even if he did grow up in Virginia. 

“Such a pity.” Alex stared at the latest email from Washington, trying to decipher whether or not it was a ‘drop everything you’re doing’ assignment or just another thing to be added to the pile. “Who knows, maybe you’ll find someone else to be your sweetest belle, your goddess in red satin.”

It should have been an innocent statement, but when Jefferson’s brow furrowed Alex caught his mistake. Blanched before shoving back from his desk. “Well, duty calls. Wash needs me to-”

Go collaborate with Lafayette. Jefferson cut him off before he could say that, though. “You.”

“Yes, me.” Alex tried to stay in motion, shoving things in the backpack that Jefferson always called ridiculous. “Shocking, I know, that he thinks I’d be useful.”

He needed to flee. Needed to get out of there before Jefferson could finish putting two and two together. 

Too late. Jefferson’s fingers wrapped around his wrist as Alex went to pass and before he knew it, the only thing he could see was the purple fabric of Jefferson’s dress shirt. Found himself walked backward until his back hit the wall. 

“You conniving little tramp,” Jefferson’s breath was hot against Alex’s ear while he hissed.

In another situation, with another person, Alex might find the situation favorable. It’d been too long since he’d pushed against a flat surface and well, he’d always had a thing for older men.

But this wasn’t some tall stranger in the bar, it was the man who had been trying to get Alex to quit for months, almost as long as Alex had been catfishing him. 

Jefferson’s forehead pressed against the wall and when Alex tilted his head to look, he had to resist the urge to cough at the mouth full of ringlets he earned for his trouble. Even with the squirming, Jefferson didn’t move. Just laughed, a bitter sound. “I trusted her. I told her things-”

Things he wouldn’t have told Alex. Might not have shared with anyone considering the way he was reacting. Alex cringed at that implication.

Suddenly all those late night chats weren’t so funny.

“And to think-” Alex stumbled when Jefferson stepped back- “I hadn’t thought my opinion of you could be lower.”

\----

The four hours that Alex spent drafting an apology turned out to be for nothing when Jefferson didn’t show up for work the next day. Or the next. Or the next.

Something that was- well, in short, concerning.

Well aware that he was unwelcome, Alex climbed the steps to the third floor so that he could knock on Madison’s office. Considering what he’d done, talking to one of the higher-ups in the office was a terrible idea- but James was also the only person that he could think of that might know where Jefferson was.

“Come in. Take a seat.” James didn’t bother looking up from the paperwork he was looking over, something that only added to the feeling that Alex was a naughty school boy reporting for detention. “How may I help you today, Mr. Hamilton?”

“I’m worried about Jefferson.” Fuck, it felt weird to say that. “He hasn’t quit, has he?”

While the look Madison gave him was critical, it was impossible to tell if he knew what had happened between the pair. “I’m afraid Mr. Jefferson needed to take some personal time. He should be back by next week’s end.”

Oh.

That seemed a bit drastic. “Did he say why he needed to take time off?”

Madison sat down the paperwork, folding his hands on the desk. “That would be rather insensitive, would it not? To share such personal information with a coworker without his permission?”

It wasn’t until Alex was dismissed and headed out the door that Madison confirmed just how pointed of a statement that had been. “ I know apologies aren’t your forte, but if you have anything to say to him, I advise you to act sooner rather than later, Mr. Hamilton.”

Well. Fuck.

\----

“You know-” Jefferson sat next to him on the bench, body stiff- “I could release that tape. Ruin both of your lives.”

True. Maybe Alex should have consulted with John first. At least he’d had the foresight to blur out his friend’s face. “I didn’t think you’d see me unless you felt I was in an equally vulnerable position.”

Jefferson snorted, staring at his shoes. “So you sent me a tape of you getting fucked.”

It’d made sense at the time.

“I guess, if I lower myself to your level, I can understand why you did it.” Somehow, Alex didn’t think he was talking about the sex tape. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t stop. Why you let me- What kind of sick fuck are you? Did you titter about my dead wife to your little friends? About how torn up I was?”

No. That hadn’t even crossed Alex’s mind. “I just thought you were drunk. So I tried to make you feel better and then sort of-”

Moved on from it. Because if not, he would have had to think about the fact that the rules of the game had changed. Those nights- those nights had been different. 

As much of an asshole as Alex was, he wouldn’t have told John about that. “Like, I won’t lie. We laughed at you being a pretentious dick and a secret romantic- but that wouldn’t have been funny.”

“Good to know you have some morals.” Funny how hard that statement stung.

Part of him wanted to snip that Jefferson couldn’t exactly complain considering the way he’d treated Alex from the day they’d met. The rest of him- Alex plucked at his pant leg. “Let me make it up to you.”

“Don’t really know how you can.”

Fair. “Have you eaten? Let me treat you to dinner?”

“Hamilton.” Jefferson looked at him for the first time. “I hardly want to be seen with you right now.”

Also fair. “I’ve got the stuff to make pasta at home. You can make fun of my terrible decor. Steal the batteries out of my remotes. Put sugar in my salt shaker.”

Not that Alex had ever done such things. Jefferson still didn’t look sure and Alex sighed, rubbing at his eyes. “Look- you haven’t been to work in a few days, and you still look like you’ve been dragged behind a tractor. I’ll let you drink all my good liquor and use it as an excuse to punch me if it makes you feel better.”

“Why do I feel like I’m going to regret this?” Jefferson pushed himself off of the bench, muttered that he would follow Alex in his car.

Driving alone only gave Alex time to regret his decision. What was he thinking? He’d gone out there with the intention of apologizing. Of trying to figure out what it would take to get Jefferson back at work. 

Maybe tease him about taking time off to begin with. After all, it wasn’t that big of a deal, was it?

Except the thing with his late wife. It was funny joking about Jefferson bemoaning love when one took that away. His fascination with ‘Maria’ had been precious. How he’d opened up to her. The ridiculous way he talked when anything romance related came up.

Having Jefferson in his house was even weirder. “There’s a ladder in the linen closet if you want to unscrew all my lightbulbs.”

Jefferson blinked. Opened and closed his mouth twice before finding his footing. “Is this how you and your friends deal with things? Petty pranks?”

“One time when John was drunk he super glued the tops onto all of my peanut butter and toothpaste.” Drunk and pissed. For what, Alex couldn’t actually remember. What Alex did remember was not finding out about the peanut butter until two weeks after the fact.

Unsurprisingly, Jefferson didn’t look impressed. “Where’s your kitchen?”

Alex waved him on, tried not to cringe when Jefferson opened his fridge. So what if half of the contents happened to be leftovers? He was a busy professional, no need to waste time cooking most nights. 

When Jefferson started opening cabinets and pulling down pots, Alex groaned. “I said I would cook.”

“I prefer to see tomorrow.” Out came a box of pasta, and Alex watched in despair while the man moved on to the freezer. “Though, eating anything here might make that a difficult task.”

Asshole. “If you didn’t want to try my cooking, why come?”

No answer.

“It’s depressing to see a grown man live like this.” It was depressing that Jefferson wrote sonnets for women he’d only been talking to for a week, but he didn’t see Alex saying that. “Please tell me that you spend most of your time at the boyfriend’s, and that’s why your house looks like this.”

Boyfriend? “If I were dating someone, I would have had better things to do on Saturday nights than read news articles with you. Or watch movies at the same time so that you could message me about it.”

The look on Jefferson’s face reminded him that talking about the catfishing might not have been his best idea. “Sorry.”

“I lied. I don’t understand why you did it.” Jefferson turned away from his pot once he turned the stove on. “In concept- sure- but that’s what else gets me. You didn’t pull a haha funny, you wasted hours of your day on this. Do you generally spend more than a hundred hours on a prank?”

Had it been a hundred hours? They had talked most days for the past couple of months- but-

Jefferson was right. “Don’t overthink it. When you weren’t being weird, it was a nice way to pass the time. Your political views are atrocious, but you’re fun to debate with- and your taste in movies isn’t that bad.”

“You stole a girl’s pictures so that you could catfish your coworker, and I’m the one being weird?” 

Alex shrugged, digging beneath the sink so that he could come back with the scotch he hid for special occasions. Snagged two glasses from the cabinet as well, trying to ignore the warm body next to his as Jefferson refused to move. 

It was only after he’d poured both of them a drink that Alex bothered to correct him. “I’ll have you know that I didn’t steal anyone’s pictures. Maria’s a real person, and she knew exactly what I was doing. It worked better that way, just in cause you ran into each other at the grocery store. She uh, appreciated the compliments, by the way.”

If looks could kill, Alex would have been resurrected twice and in the ground for the third time. “Just how many people were you sharing the details with?”

“Two?” No that wasn’t quite true, either. “Three? You don’t know two of them, You’re just some asshole from work-”

“I don’t know two of them.” Jefferson knocked back what was left in his glass before reaching for the decanter. “That implies I do know one of them.”

Maybe that hadn’t been the smartest thing to point out. “I might have shared some of the poetry with Lafayette.”

“I’m going to kill you.” Another shot out of the way and Jefferson laughed before turning off the stove, abandoning the pot of water that had only just started to boil. Made as if to leave the kitchen.

Something that Alex couldn’t have. Reached out to grab Jefferson’s wrist. “You’ve drank too much already, you can’t drive.”

“Who said anything about leaving?” Jefferson dangled the bottle of scotch in front of Alex’s face. “I’m going to go soak all your toilet paper in the shower.”

So long as he wasn’t planning on getting behind the wheel of a car. 

Instead of making a beeline for Alex’s bathroom, Jefferson flopped down on the couch, scotch sloshing as he did. “I loved her, you know. I know that’s probably what you were giggling about with your friends. But I did. I was more than willing to wait. After all, I’ve been waiting years since Martha died. And now it’s all for nothing.”

Alex cringed. “She wasn’t real. I’m sure you’ll be able to find a real girl-”

“Ah yes, because my professional life leaves so much time for offline dating, and this experience means I trust the online system so much.” Jefferson took a swig straight from the bottle. “Clearly I’m an excellent judge of character considering that I didn’t doubt her for one second.”

“You were-” Fuck. What was Alex supposed to say? “I didn’t think it would upset you this much. Fuck, I’ve been blown off by plenty of people. I didn’t take a week off work when it happened.”

“Don’t make me reconsider your punching offer.” Another long swallow. “I had the vacation time to burn. I can use it however I want.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but maybe you should use it on an actual vacation. Not mourning the loss of a girl you never met.”

Jefferson shook his head. Whether in disagreement or just to make his hair bounce, Alex wasn’t sure. “I loved her.” 

“Please stop saying that.” Alex glanced toward the tv, unwilling to look at Jefferson for what was about to come out of his mouth. “It’s creepy as fuck. Like- yeah, I used Maria’s picture and I lied and said I was a school teacher, but other than that? You were talking to me.”

Well, a version of him that liked Jefferson a bit more. But it would have been too much effort to actually create a fake personality to go along with the fake profile.

“Oh?” Jefferson snorted. “Am I making the guy who sent me his sex tape uncomfortable?”

Could Jefferson pick a reason to dislike him and stick with that? The way he bounced back and forth was making Alex’s head spin. “Can we go back to you wanting to punch me? That sounds like a painless way to get this over with.”

“You just want to get close to me.” Jefferson put the scotch on the ground, pushed himself to sit up.

Alex made a face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You’re the one who keeps saying it was you I was talking to.” Sure. What that had to do with anything, Alex wasn’t sure. “So that means that you were the one who wanted to get with me.”

“Ah hahaha- No.” Alex held up his hands. “That is not what that meant.”

A statement that didn’t stop Jefferson from standing up or crowding him against the wall for the second time in far too short a time period. “So your breath didn’t catch the other day at work when I did this? I was just imagining things.”

Not quite. Alex closed his eyes. Hated the way Jefferson took it as permission to push just a touch closer. 

“Tell me no.” Jefferson tilted Alex’s chin upward. “Tell me that you aren’t in the slightest attracted to me. That it was all a lie.”

That should have been easy. Jefferson was ridiculous. Obnoxious. Wore the loudest suits Alex had ever seen.

But-

Jefferson’s lips were surprisingly soft. A bit pushy, but considering the amount he’d had to drink, Alex couldn’t fault him there. It took an inappropriate amount of willpower to reach up and grip Jefferson’s collar, to push him back.

Tried not to cringe at the expression on Jefferson’s face. “You’re not sober. If I let you do this- you’re going to hate yourself instead of just hating me.”

“You don’t get to speak for me-”

No, Alex didn’t. “I get to speak for me, and I don’t get fucked by people who’ve been drinking straight from the bottle.”

Jefferson opened his mouth to argue and Alex cut him off with a final kiss. Allowed them both that, well aware that Jefferson wasn’t the only one who might hate himself in the morning. Kept it up long enough to walk Jefferson a few steps backward, freeing Alex from the wall so that he could get away.

“Look, you can have your pick. Bed or the couch.” Alex looked toward the hallway, trying to clear his head. “If you still want to do something in the morning-”

Jefferson shoved him before returning to the couch. “Don’t worry- I won’t.”

It wasn’t until Alex hid the scotch and draped a blanket over the man that he allowed himself to wonder whether or not he’d regret that in the morning.


End file.
